Amazing finger portraits: Steve Jobs, Gaddafi and more

Portraits on a fingertip: The Dalai Lama

Using his fingertip as a canvas, 33-year-old Italian art director has come up with an interesting series of portraits of famous personalities -- The Dalai Lama, Steve Jobs and Hitler, to mention a few. Rediff.com's bring you the collection

Italian artist who goes by the alias Dito Von Tease has some of the world's greatest personalities on his fingertips, literally.

The 33-year-old native of Bologna has created a series of portraits on his index finger with the help of some digital graphics.

And in three years after he started his project on Facebook, he continues to be known only by his avatar 'Il Dito' or 'Dito Von Tease'. 'Dito' is Italian for finger and 'Von Tease' is an homage to the burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese.

"In Italian there's an expression, which says 'hide behind my finger'. It's a metaphor to indicate not a very effective hiding place. So, first of all, I used this metaphor to say we all try to hide ourselves behind an image that we create. My finger is the changing mask that everybody wears, especially the famous people," said the artist.

"I would like to stimulate people to be curious and to think about the complex mystery of our identity," he said.

And finally, there's another sense of the finger, as it has become a 'tool' in the digital era to use touch screens and the mouse, he added.

Dito Von Tease has disguised his finger as everyone from historic greats like The Dalai Lama to superheroes like Spider-Man. Each image takes around eight to 16 hours to complete. And behind the finger is an art director, visualiser, illustrator and graphic designer.